Octopus Skimmer Owners

[ryandlf]

I have a couple questions, and the web is very vague about these skimmers for some reason. There are a lot of positive reviews but no one really explains how to set them up and get them working properly. I have a BH 300-F. Its a hang on back model and my only real concern right now is with the first/intake chamber (where the water is siphoned in). The filter is about half way up the box inside this chamber and is connected by one end of the pump to the second chamber (I guess this is to pump air into the water thus creating the "skim") The pump that pulls the water has also got one end sticking into the first chamber at the very bottom. Now, no matter what I do I cannot get the water level in the first chamber to rise about the pump. It stays pretty consistent only covering up maybe the bottom 10%. My assumption was that maybe this was supposed to be the case because that pumps main purpose is to pump air, but I also hear a humming...its been running for about 2 days now and i've still got that awful hum...otherwise things look to be working ok. I can't really tell because I don't have a bio-load on the tank yet...its finished the cycling process and I wanted to try and get the skimmer broke in before I introduced any inhabitants. Please, please, please someone help me out with this.

[saltaddict]

Ryan,

I don't own one but we discussed this the other day. I read that once the siphon was started that the air hose was to be removed?? Did you read that anywhere or have you tried that?

[ryandlf]

Ok so here's what I did and it seems to have worked for the time being. Hopefully this will help anyone in the future. Again this is an Octopus BH-300F.

1) I filled the water level in the skimmer all the way to the top.
2) Attached air hose from pump 1 into air valve and started up pump 1 with the valve open until all the air was removed from the line at which point I closed the valve and removed the line and attached it to the silencer. I just let this pump run by itself for a minute.
3) This is when I started up pump two...which completed the process.

I have learned that the water level in chamber one will not rise up past the pump. It should just cover the bottom of the pump a little bit. There should be steady air flow being sucked into this pump so that it can inject the air into the second chamber and this create the foam. The water level should stay constant, and restart the whole process if the water level seems to rise up high in chamber 1 and then fall back down. This means that the siphon is pumping to much water for the pumps to handle. So the water level should stay constant and you should see foam building up in the arm of the cup constantly. I resolved most of my problems by starting the pumps one at a time.

Hope this helps anyone else who may have problems with Octopus skimmers in the future.